On the homepage of Yahoo sports today...

[Thrilla]

...is another article about us, this time from one of my favorite columnists, Dan Wetzel.  This is following our coaching debacle being featured on the main Yahoo web page yesterday.  The media just can't get enough.  It's fun to be critical of this program...they have every right to be.  I've underlined the blunt force trauma shots that he's taken at our school.  Taking our medicine, indeed.

Auburn’s ‘best fit’ defense of Chizik looks lame

By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports

Auburn’s best defense against charges of racism in hiring a football coach is its administration’s track record of color-blind incompetence.

Tommy Tuberville is extremely white and extremely successful, but the school inexplicably paid $5.1 million to buy him out and replace him with Gene Chizik. At Iowa State, Chizik went 5-19, making him on paper one of the worst SEC hires in years.

If you think that was smart, not even one of Auburn’s famous “directed-reading” classes can save you.

The program has spun into controversy, ranging from fans depressed about the prospects of future losses to alums outraged at possible discrimination.

In the process of hiring Chizik, Auburn snubbed two prime African-American candidates.

One was Turner Gill, the University at Buffalo’s miracle-working head coach. In 2006, he took over a fledgling, hopeless program that had won 10 games over the previous seven seasons. This year, his third, Buffalo captured the Mid-American Conference championship.

The other, although lacking Gill’s experience, was Rodney Garner, a Leeds, Ala., native, former star player and assistant coach at Auburn. He’s currently the highly regarded assistant head coach at Georgia where he’s considered a master recruiter.

Neither stood a chance to Chizik, a coach on a 10-game losing streak.

“I think race was the No. 1 factor,” Auburn alum Charles Barkley told ESPN. “You can say it’s not about race, but you can’t compare the two résumés [Gill and Chizik] and say [Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst résumé.”

Auburn cared nothing about résumés. At Monday’s introductory news conference Chizik repeatedly said he was the right guy because during his three years as an Auburn assistant he came to “understand” the people and the expectations of the program.

So Gill couldn’t understand such deep concepts as Auburn wants to beat Alabama and win a national title (although they’ll settle for the SEC)? This isn’t a secret code.

Athletic director Jay Jacobs didn’t offer a thoughtful, sensitive explanation. He just claimed Chizik was the “best fit” because he had a “blueprint” for success.

The definition of “fit” is a convenient, undefined term. Fit for whom? Fit for what?

Citing a “blueprint” is to say Chizik’s ability to bloviate a plan counted more than Chizik’s and Gill’s track record of whether their blueprint did or did not work.

It’s all the same nebulous criteria that allows the justification of a hire and completely frustrates African-American candidates.

There are four black head coaches in major college football, including one at a BCS conference, Miami’s Randy Shannon. There’s no perfect number. Every school should hire regardless of race. This isn’t a racial or social obligation. But what does someone like Gill need to do to become the best candidate, to be the so-called “best fit”? How do you convince one of these old boy search committees?

Barkley said he talked with Gill and Gill was concerned he’d never be a serious candidate because his wife is white. Barkley, and a number of Gill’s peers in the coaching community, agreed, but encouraged him anyway. Apparently such marriages are still uncomfortable to university presidents, major boosters and assorted Klan members. DAMN!

“He was concerned about having a white wife,” Barkley said. “It’s just very disappointing to me.”

Chizik certainly did nothing at Iowa State to make anyone think he’s a promising head coach, let alone capable of going head-to-head with Nick Saban. If Auburn was so intent on helping rival Alabama dominate, it could’ve just donated to the “Crimson Tradition” fund and spared a lot of hurt feelings.

“I just thought Turner Gill would be the perfect choice for two reasons: He’s a terrific coach and we needed to make a splash,” Barkley said. “I thought we had to do something spectacular to bring attention to the program. Clearly, if we’d hired a black coach, it would have created a buzz.”

Just hiring Gill, regardless of his race, would’ve been big. The guy should be the hottest coach in the country. He was a skilled, smart quarterback at Nebraska who wasn’t just a 1983 Heisman finalist but the winner of all the school’s leadership and character awards.

Nebraska’s Tom Osborne hired Gill as an assistant and during the 1990s Gill helped recruit and coach three national championship teams. He was so good with quarterbacks that no less than Eric Crouch won the Heisman.

Yet, the only head job he could get was Buffalo, a fledgling program with no history and few resources. It was arguably the worst job in Division I. It’s now conference champs.

That wasn’t good enough for Auburn. Or Tennessee. Or Washington. Or Mississippi State. Or Clemson. Or Kansas State.

Or even Gill’s own Nebraska, which last year chose LSU assistant Bo Pelini over him. Pelini may prove to be a great hire, but his résumé wasn’t as strong as Gill’s. While both were former NU assistants, Pelini wasn’t an alumnus or a former star. He lacked the name recognition and head coaching experience of Gill.

Yet Pelini was determined to be the proverbial “best fit.” How could anyone be a better fit at Nebraska than the great Turner Gill?

It was a puzzling snub, Nebraska’s defense being that Gill hadn’t turned the corner at UB. He has now, but the Nebraska decision haunts him because according to the Birmingham News, Auburn is whispering that if Gill was so great, why didn’t his alma mater hire him?

And so the circle goes.

Just throwing out the blanket charge of racism is too easy in explaining the paucity of black coaches. Yet year after year too many of these schools justify any candidate but the black guy, moving the goal posts on them in the selection process.

When considering Chizik against Gill an “understanding” of the school counted more than head coaching success. When considering Chizik against Garner head coaching “experience” meant more than an understanding of the school.

Understand this, a proud program looks pathetic. Best fit, indeed.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-auburncoach121508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

[Birmingham]

Apparently such marriages are still uncomfortable to university presidents, major boosters and assorted Klan members.

ouch!

[War Eagle!!!]

"Perception" is a bitch....

It pisses me off that this has to be about color and not about the fact that Jay Jacobs is a complete ass clown. I agree with Kaos previous post. I truly don't think race had ANYTHING to do with this hire. NOTHING! It would have been the easy thing to do. With this one time, it would have been the really EASY thing to do in hiring a black dude. JAY JACOBS IS JUST A COMPLETE IDIOT....PERIOD. That is the ONLY reason Gill wasn't hired...

[AuburnChopper 3.0]

Fuck these people man.

[Catphish Tilly]

"Barkley Rips His Alma Mater", or something to that extent, was also on the aol news homepage this morning.

Yay, we're famous!

[AuburnChopper 3.0]

So, how long does it take for Barkley's wax display to come out of the museum at Auburn?   Right, or wrong, he stepped WAY over the line with that BS.

[tiger88]

Fuck yahoo sports and all the half ass motherfuckers on espn like van pelt and tirico who were fuck buddies with tubs and are now working their agenda to smear AU and fill space in the pre-bowl time of year. Fuck em all! They don't give a fuck about us one way or the other.

I am hoping that Cizik proves that JJ was right in his hire and all these media assholes are as dunb as usual.

[Saniflush]

So, how long does it take for Barkley's wax display to come out of the museum at Auburn?   Right, or wrong, he stepped WAY over the line with that BS.

I don't understand this?

How did he step out of line?  By saying what he thinks.  How come everyone else can say what they think and he cannot?

[tiger88]

freak gnarles barkly too! I hope he gets on his knees everyday and thanks the lord for his ability to play bassetball.

[AuburnChopper 3.0]

Hmm...I guess maybe I'm stepping over the line a little Sani huh...not like any of THAT has gone on around here...

However, I believe his single racial rant will do FAR more harm to Auburn (the University and perception of the people in the national spotlight, than just football) than hiring Gene Chizik in the short term.   

[Saniflush]

Hmm...I guess maybe I'm stepping over the line a little Sani huh...not like any of THAT has gone on around here...

However, I believe his single racial rant will do FAR more harm to Auburn than hiring Gene Chizik in the short term.   

I never said you were a line stepper.  I am just questioning why he does not get his opinion.  He gives more than a million a year to Tigers Unlimited why doesn't he get some answering for what he perceives as transgressions by his university. 

I want someone to answer to me and they only get a TINY fraction of that from me.  We all want someone to answer for something.

I guess we can take a snap shot of this and look back in 4-5 years and see which one has more if any long term repercussions.

[AuburnChopper 3.0]

I guess we can take a snap shot of this and look back in 4-5 years and see which one has more if any long term repercussions.

True dat.

[Snaggletiger]

I agree that we, along with most Southern Universities, get singled out when it comes to anything negative occurring like this.  And if Meechegan or Boston College or Wisconsin had an opening and bypassed a black coach, there would be little or nothing said. 

However, Auburn's opening was HUGE and a lot of people were looking at this as an opportunity for us to give that very opportunity to a black coach.  Couple that with the fact that Turner Gill has suddenly proven himself to be one of the hot candidates out there and people around the country developed an expectation that we would go in his direction.  You can call Barkley a tool all you want but the percentages of black coaches speak for themselves.  His view may be a little jaded by the fact that he was involved in the coaching search when Lebo was hired and offered up 3 black candidates, all of which had just taken their clubs to the NCAA's and according to him, he was promptly removed from the search committee.

Don't know how true that is but that's what our local sports talk guy read from an article this morning. 

Forget Barkely for a second.  A caller to the Brando show today made some great points in saying this simply isn't about race.  It's about the bigger picture.  Not only did they pass on Gill, they also passed on every other more qualified (On paper anyway) candidate.  This is more about the asshattery of our administration.  If people around the country looked at our boards prior to this hiring, they would have most likely seen huge support for Gill and a number of other coaches.  Not one for Chizik.   

[tiger88]

He stepped over the line when he cried racism without any proof or really anything at all to back it up. Overall, I like barkley, but to cry racism here is just plain ridiculous unless you have some proof. It looks to me like they gave him serious consideration and chose someone else. They could have just given him a quick courtesy interview to cta if they weren't really considering him.

Regardless, the only reason this is getting extremely negative press everywhere is because he mentioned it was a racist move, which is groundless. Otherwise it gets little coverage.

[War Eagle!!!]

Fuck yahoo sports and all the half ass motherfuckers on espn like van pelt and tirico who were fuck buddies with tubs and are now working their agenda to smear AU and fill space in the pre-bowl time of year. Fuck em all! They don't give a fuck about us one way or the other.

I am hoping that Cizik proves that JJ was right in his hire and all these media assholes are as dunb as usual.

Van Pelt LOVES Auburn. I haven't heard him talking about this fiasco, but he ALWAYS gives a big WAR EAGLE when he would do Auburn's highlights on SportsCenter. He really does like AUburn. He is saying the same thing that we are all saying. When you really like a University (like I think he really does), you can't help but to voice your opinion in an unapproving way. I know that is not what the rest of the media is doing, but I honestly believe that about Van Pelt. He is one of my favorites!

[tiger88]

Van Pelt LOVES Auburn. I haven't heard him talking about this fiasco, but he ALWAYS gives a big WAR EAGLE when he would do Auburn's highlights on SportsCenter. He really does like AUburn. He is saying the same thing that we are all saying. When you really like a University (like I think he really does), you can't help but to voice your opinion in an unapproving way. I know that is not what the rest of the media is doing, but I honestly believe that about Van Pelt. He is one of my favorites!

I like van pelt too. I am just saying that he can kiss my ass afa his opinion on this issue.